ellipse
French, noun/e.lips/
ellipse is spelled E-L-L-I-P-S-E (7 letters) and appears 1.1 times per million words in written French, the 29,681st most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Ellipse is a French feminine noun meaning “ellipse (the locus of a point such that the sum of the distances from that point to two other fixed points is constant; equivalently, the…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Suppression d’un élément de phrase sans changement de signification”.
What does ellipse mean in English?
noun
- 1
feminineellipse (the locus of a point such that the sum of the distances from that point to two other fixed points is constant; equivalently, the conic section that is the intersection of a cone with a plane that does not intersect the base of the cone)
- 2
feminineellipsis (the removal from a phrase of a word which is grammatically needed, but which is clearly understood without having to be stated)
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Suppression d’un élément de phrase sans changement de signification. 2. Points de suspension. Série de trois points ([…] ou …) signalant une énumération incomplète. 3. Suppression d’actions entre deux séquences d’un film, qui n’altère pas la compréhension du récit.
noun: 1. Dans un plan euclidien, une ellipse est courbe plane fermée, dont chacun des points est tel que la somme des distances à deux points fixes, dits foyers, est constante. 2. Ovale, courbe ovale.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of ellipse
- ellipses plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce ellipse?
- /e.lips/
- \e.lips\
- \ɛ(l).lips\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to ellipse
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is ellipse in French?
ellipse appears 1.1 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).